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Thursday, 21 August 2014

REWIND: Super Furry Animals - 'It's Not The End Of The World?'

Music formats have come and gone over the years. I was in my teens when the industry was hailing the Mini Disc as the future of listening, possibly pushed harder by desperation to distract people from MP3 players. At the time it was pretty cool though, like a cassette tape that had nearly the same sound quality as CD and that you could skip and search through rather than rewinding or fast forwarding. I would hook my mini disc player up to the TV with an audio lead and record various things from MTV 2, which was a more alternative/rock leaning sister version of the former music channel. Having been keen on the Super Furry Animals for a few years, I was excited when they announced that their 2001 album 'Rings Around The World' would also be accompanied by an animated film and played in full on the channel. So I "MD-ed" it. A form of piracy that existed in between home taping and illegal downloading, one that I'm sure all others who owned the devices must have been doing at the time. In that year after leaving college, various mundane jobs included Burger King and a few temporary shifts on dull packing/production lines. My 'Rings Around The World' MiniDisc brightened up those drab days and helped the hours fly by. I bought the CD a few weeks later. From it, here's the glorious 'It's Not The End Of The World?', a stunning number that highlights the band's gift for heart capturing moments of alluring melancholia...